Has Spilotro brothers' murder finally been solved?

Tuesday, April 26th, 2005 10:00 PM

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The sweeping federal indictments of 14 reputed Chicago mobsters Monday may finally shed some light on the final day of Las Vegas mob chief and part time Oak Park resident Tony "The Ant" Spilotro. According to the Chicago Crime Commission, just 14 of the 1,111 organized crime-related murders in Chicago since 1919 have ended in convictions. That figure will likely more than double soon.

The murder of Spilotro and his brother Michael, also a reputed outfit member, are among as many as 18 mob killings that federal agents believe have finally been solved. The break came with the assistance of a disgruntled mob insider. Nick Calabrese, the son of top mobster Frank Calabrese. The younger Calabrese has not only been giving up information to federal agents by the trailer load, but has worn a wire while speaking with his father in a federal prison. The result has been a motherlode of intelligence for federal agents, and an unprecedented look inside the secretive and brutal world of the Chicago mob.

When Tony and Michael Spilotro left Tony's modest townhouse in southwest Oak Park the morning of June 14, 1986, they believed they were going to meet with top Chicago mob bosses. The long held belief was that the two men were ambushed in an Indiana cornfield, beaten savagely, then buried alive. Monday's indictments indicate that the Spilotros were instead beaten senseless in a Bensenville basement, then driven to the Indiana cornfield where they were subsequently found bound and buried in a shallow grave six days later.

The details relating to Oak Park's other high profile murder victim, former mob chieftain Sam Giancana, apparently will not be solved. Giancana, who ran the Chicago Outfit from 1955 to 1965, when he was forced out by Anthony Accardo, was shot in the head numerous times in the basement of his Wenonah Avenue home in June, 1975.?#34; Bill Dwyer